You
are a sitcom writer for a major television network. The network is once
again in a slump and as their star writer its up to you to come up with
a clever, new sitcom to boost their ratings. On a steep deadline (a week)
you gather up some of your best co-workers and put together a short commercial
that you hope will leave the network production panel (the olympics judges...)
salivating! Your sitcom can be of any flavor. To help you along, we've
provided a list of sitcom genres with examples:

Super-Natural

Mork & Mindy

Bewitched

I Dream of Genie

Alf

Family

Cosby Show

Simsons

Brady Bunch

Full House

Workplace

Just Shoot Me

Cheers

WKPR

Group of
Friends

Friends

Seinfeld

Drew Carry

Odd Couples

Will & Grace

Perfect Strangers

The Odd Couple

Non-Traditional
Family

Punky Bruster

Different Strokes

Webster

Small Wonder

Mr. Belvedeer

Who's The Boss

Frasier

Awards
and Scoring

Awards

Most
Original Sitcom

*50
points

Most Entertaining

50
points

Best Writing

30
points

Best Music

20
points

Best Special
Effects

20
points

Best Cinematography

20
points

Best Choreography

20
points

Best
Female Actor

10
points

Best
Male Actor

10
points

Participation

Five points will
be awarded for each team member that participates.

Time Limit

Commercials that
exceed the time limit will be penalized at the discretion of the judges.

Bonus

Twenty points
will be award for a composed theme song.

* Points
are relative to this event.

Details
and Tips

Turn in the video
on a cued DV tape to Mario Christoudias in NE43-V609 by 2pm on Friday,
January 30.

Commercials have
a time limit of 1 minute and a suggested length of 30 seconds.

Cameras and equipment
will be discussed during the captains meeting.

Take lots of
footage. You don't want to have to reshoot scenes the night before it
is due.

Shoot the same
scene from multiple camera angles, so you can cut between them.

I'd
like to give special thanks to Neal Checka and Kevin Wilson for helping
with the theme of this event and providing me with genres and examples.
I'd also like to thank Jacob Eisenstein and Michael Siracusa for their
ideas on scoring and Harold Fox for his tips on filming and editing.